THE COUNTRY OF OLD AGE

Help! I’ve Fallen and I Can’t Get Up

When things that once seemed far in the distant future suddenly come to pass

UK Elderly People Sign by GaryCreative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic

Yesterday, I drove to Aldi and Intermarché, where I filled half a dozen reusable bags with a couple of weeks’ worth of groceries — in France you bag your own groceries, fill the shopping cart, load the bags into the car, then return the cart to its designated spot in the parking lot, where you retrieve the coin you used to initially release the cart and head home.

Grocery shopping, as I recall, was less demanding back in the States.

Home again, I parked the car, my partner helped me carry the grocery bags up three flights of winding stone stairs to the garret — actually, he carried most of them, I took the light ones. I started putting things away, and he returned to the garden and his book.

I dislike grocery shopping only slightly less than getting my hair done — especially I dislike hurriedly cramming everything into sacks before the next customer’s purchases start approaching my still unbagged stuff. Nothing makes me feel older and more feeble. But the worst was over.

Famous last words. As I started to put bananas in a fruit bowl on the dresser, my heel skidded on an empty bag I’d thrown down, and I felt myself falling. As I grabbed the wooden table, my ribs hit a corner, and I tumbled. In an instant, I was on my back next to the fridge.

Although my head hadn’t hit the floor, I lay there stunned. I could feel the colour drain from my face. When I tried to sit up, a pain in my ribs forced me back down. My bag with my phone was almost within reach, I pushed it closer with my foot, retrieved the phone and called my partner down in the garden.

He was up in an instant, told me not to move, brought a glass of water and put a pillow under my head. Other than the pain in my ribs, nothing felt broken — I’ve broken bones before, and remember the feeling. After a few minutes, I said I’d try to get up. It was harder than I thought.

The LifeAlert TV commercial I remember from the States came to mind. An elderly woman lying on the floor, her plaintive cry, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” It was that ad that prompted me to get a device for my mother, then in her late eighties and living alone. I couldn’t foresee the day I’d consider one for myself.

In fact, until yesterday, I thought I’d have no trouble getting myself up off the floor — although I hadn’t tried the sitting-rising test, which predicts overall strength, balance, flexibility, and longevity based on how easily you can sit down and rise from the floor with little or no support.

I hadn’t tried it because I knew I’d probably need to grip onto something, which would lower my score and then keep me awake nights worrying about my longevity; ridiculous at 81, but there you are. Instead, I reassure myself with daily sit-stand chair exercises, I can easily do twenty, and standing on each leg for 20 seconds.

But neither test was going to get me up from the kitchen floor. I told my partner that I thought I could manage it, manoeuvred onto one side and raised myself to my knees — except my right knee still bore the scar from the bionic replacement less than eighteen months ago. The wound had been slow to heal, and the surgeon had warned me not to put weight on the fragile skin around it.

Without getting on my knees, it was difficult, but my partner eventually managed to hoist me up. Would I have eventually righted myself if he hadn’t been there? I like to think I would, but I’m honestly not sure. There’s probably a French version of an alert system like the one I got for my mother, but the thought of lying on the floor asking for help in my mangled French is not something I want to contemplate right now.

Today, my ribs hurt a bit when I sit up, but otherwise, no lingering physical damage — just a recognition of how soon the distant future becomes today’s issue to solve. And as the years fly by, the issues mount up. Meanwhile, there are still some groceries to put away. I’ll be more careful this time — no empty sacks left on the floor.